The game elite (on my apple iie) played a big role in me being interested in 3d graphics (most importantly, hidden line removal). I was really curious as a high school student how the game achieved what it did, and it wasn't until later that I read a few interviews with the authors (and later, the source code) that I began to appreciate just how unprepared I was back then to write a first-class game.
Beyond that it was a great game to play. I used to buy drugs on poor agricultural planets, then sell them for massive profits on rich industrial ones, then buy illegal weapons and sell them back on the poor agricultural planets. Starfighting was quite good in terms of frame rate and enemy AI. At some point, hundreds of hours into the game, I was offered a unique mission to recover a spacecraft...
Beyond that it was a great game to play. I used to buy drugs on poor agricultural planets, then sell them for massive profits on rich industrial ones, then buy illegal weapons and sell them back on the poor agricultural planets. Starfighting was quite good in terms of frame rate and enemy AI. At some point, hundreds of hours into the game, I was offered a unique mission to recover a spacecraft...